Ruling the Princess

by Christi Barth

  “Genevieve, I appreciate the apology, but stop already. We hashed it out. You had your reasons. And they were only, say twenty-five percent malicious.”

  Her stunning violet eyes narrowed. “Fourteen percent at most.”

  “I’ve calmed down. Can’t change the past. I just have to figure out how to move forward.”

  “If you’re calmer now, can I ask you why you were so amped up to talk to your father? Will you help me understand?”

  It was thoughtful. Both that she’d waited to ask and that she wanted to know. Theo wasn’t used to people wanting to understand what made him tick. He had loads of friendly acquaintances in England and the States, but Simon was his only ride-or-die friend. And it took a whole lot of whiskey to get them to fully open up to each other sporadically.

  Theo wanted her to know. He wanted someone to take his side.

  He wanted that someone to be Genevieve, with her sympathetic hand pats and smiles and the way she fully listened to him now that she’d mostly withdrawn her knee-jerk spikes in their conversations.

  “I planned to talk to my father about the future of our duchy.” The one that would someday, shockingly, be his responsibility. Theo struggled on a daily basis with accepting that new reality. Especially since he’d never planned on staying here once the audit was completed. “Now that I’m back in Moncriano, I want to help. To do right by my people.”

  “Funny. That’s exactly what I say when you nitpick my budget.”

  She was…right. Although his plans weren’t anywhere close to the same scale as justifying a double column of ice swans for the palace entryway when the Crown Prince of Jaidhpur visited.

  “Point taken.” Theo looked out the window at the tightly packed rows of houses with colorful trim on the eaves. Regular subjects inside, who’d never in a million years lay their troubles out in front of a member of the House of Villani. It changed his mind.

  Why should the princess be bogged down with his troubles? She had enough of her own with the audit, the vote to join the EU, and a mysteriously absent father.

  He shook his head. “It isn’t worth getting into. Not a huge matter of state importance.”

  “Tell me,” she urged. “Things end up getting miraculously smoothed out when we talk to each other. You know, so often, people only talk at me. Don’t be that way. Don’t assume whatever you want to lay out for your father isn’t important enough to bother a royal. Tell me, Theo.”

  He couldn’t resist her. Yeah, that much had been clear for weeks now. “Our ducal income is down. Significantly.”

  “Do you know why?” Genny waved her hand as if erasing the question. “Sorry. If you can audit the royal books, of course you’ve already done the due diligence to figure out what went wrong.”

  “My father hasn’t done anything to keep up with the times. Not with changes in industry and economics and international trade. The people in our lands are all doing worse, due to a lack of his leadership and forward thinking.”

  She wrinkled her adorable nose. “I also presume you weren’t going to simply throw this accusation in his face. That you have a plan.”

  “Why would you assume that?”

  “Digging for compliments?”

  Yeah. You bet he was. “You owe me, Princess. Consider one compliment payment in kind for the embarrassment of the Peacock Ceremony.”

  “I thought what happened…afterward”—Genny’s cheeks pinked up the same as when he kissed her—“made up for that.”

  “No. Nope. No way.” Theo splayed his palm across her thigh and slowly stroked up and down. “When we’re together, when I’m making love to you, it’s only about how much I want you.”

  “You haven’t made love to me yet,” she said pertly.

  “Let’s say I’ve done the reconnaissance. It will happen, Princess.”

  Her mouth opened then closed soundlessly. Her cheeks turned downright scarlet. “Here’s the compliment I owe. You’re amazingly smart. Thorough. Even when that’s aimed at disrupting my life, I appreciate it.”

  Oh, he’d show her thorough… “Thank you.”

  “Now tell me what was so urgent that it had to be discussed with your father at a royal ceremony.”

  It was a topic guaranteed to deflate the erection he’d been hiding since he touched her thigh. “The urgency was in him being in the right frame of mind to listen to me. We don’t have the best relationship. Hardly any, in fact. But there’s the legacy of this ducal holding that needs to be handled. Father is a…fan of the royal family.”

  Genevieve slowly shook her head. “I don’t mean to poke, but he isn’t a member of our inner circle.”

  “No, I imagine not. But he’s royal-obsessed. Obsessed with his standing. With how the rest of nobility sees him. The ceremony would’ve put him in a good mood. Good enough to be willing to listen to me for five minutes.”

  “About?”

  “I’ve done the research. Yes, part of our lands need to be dedicated to farming. It needs to be done better, smarter, but we still must provide food to the country.”

  “And we thank you for that,” she murmured.

  Theo shifted to rest his forearm on his knee. “What we also need, however, is an industry. One that can provide employment at different skill levels, different ages. One that covers the gamut.”

  “What did you find?”

  “A factory.” God, it’d been the answer to a prayer when he discovered the place. “There’s a factory in Italy that makes cardboard coasters—beer mats, I think you call them here. To put under glasses in bars.”

  Genevieve slid her sunglasses—and how expensive those were would be a conversation for later—down her nose to narrow those violet eyes at him. “I know what a coaster is. Shockingly, we try not to leave rings on the antique tables in the palace, too.”

  The snark didn’t penetrate his enthusiasm. “They make 75 percent of the beer mats manufactured in the entire world. But an earthquake took out the village that supported it. They decided not to rebuild.”

  “That’s sensible. Why rebuild on a known fault line? That’s just courting disaster. Also, potentially uninsurable.”

  “Correct. They want to relocate. I want to bring it here.”

  “You want to build a factory on your land?”

  “Yes.” Theo knew he was moving his hands too much, but he couldn’t rein in his zeal for the opportunity. “We have a town—Moldova—which is more or less the same size as where they used to be. We can supply the same size workforce. It’s the perfect solution. I’ve already reached out. They’re highly interested. Thanks, in part, to your father’s tax breaks.”

  Coral-tipped finger and thumb touching, Genevieve held up her hand. “But the land around Moldova is a park. Thousands of acres of wildlife and grass.”

  “Which makes it the perfect location to build. We have the space. And the people.”

  Her entire demeanor changed. Right before his eyes, the sweet, sympathetic woman he’d expected to support him morphed back into a raring-to-fight princess.

  “That’s a giant ecological step backward. You’ll ruin a natural space.”

  Talk about seeing the glass as half-empty. “I’ll provide secure jobs and housing—a good, steady income and future—to hundreds of people.”

  “But you’ll lose the green space.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. “I value my people more than a swatch of grass.”

  “Don’t be dismissive. Are you really that out of touch with the greenhouse effect? That the building up of things like this factory is ruining the climate?”

  In the background info Simon had run for him, Theo didn’t remember any mention of the princess being a climate crusader. Nor had he found any oversize donations to charities of that cause. But he’d clearly stumbled upon a sore point.

  “Look, I’m not going to fuel it wit
h coal. I’ll make sure it is certified LEEDS. I’m not salting the earth.”

  “You can’t do it.”

  Oh, talk about the wrong button to push! “I don’t need your permission, Princess. Only my father’s.”

  “I’ll fight you.”

  That escalated quickly. Unexpectedly, too. “What’s your game plan for that? Make another public stink? Go on television and tell the world that I’m to blame for the ice caps melting? Make Moncriano hate me?”

  “What? Theo, no.”

  “How, then?”

  “I wouldn’t embarrass you on purpose. I wouldn’t make it public, either. All I meant was that I’ll keep throwing statistics at you. Try to get you to change your mind, to find an alternative. I don’t want to attack you. I want to help you.”

  “Ah.”

  Now he felt like an idiot. They’d gotten in this rut of going from zero to sixty in their arguments. Although they argued less now, the ramp-up was still fierce and automatic.

  He needed to do better. He needed to apologize.

  The car slowed to a stop, and the panel to the front seat slid down as Clara spoke. “We’re here, Your Highness. Leo cleared the shop, and we’re good to enter. He did want me to remind you that the shop being open does not lead to optimal safety conditions.”

  “I’m aware. But Lord Theo believes having stylists bring clothes to the palace is a gross expenditure. One that is entirely unnecessary. He is attempting to prove a point, so we’ll give him enough rope to hang himself.”

  Evidently the gloves were at least halfway off still between them when it came to her budget.

  That was fine. He’d show her there was a better, more economical way.

  Clara shifted to address him directly. And the planes of her face drew into a hard threat. “Lord Theo, if the situation escalates and the crowd can’t be controlled, we’ll need to pull the princess. And frankly, your safety will not be on our list of priorities.”

  Yeah. Nothing made it clearer than the bodyguard flat-out saying “you’re on your own.” “I get it, Clara. Duly noted. For the record, I want you to put all your resources behind guarding the princess. I can take care of myself.”

  While she didn’t roll her eyes—precisely—there was a definite angling of her head as she got out of the car that conveyed “yeah, right.” Theo took it as a good sign. One that said he was making inroads with the princess if her staff felt comfortable enough to mock him.

  It was the strangest measure of a relationship he’d ever had.

  Despite it being eleven in the morning on a weekday, the streets were full of pedestrians. Given that it was the height of tourist season—and the selfie sticks and phones flashing left and right—he attributed much of the crowd to not being local.

  It did make him second-guess this trip, though. Because a circle of people gathered before Genevieve even stepped out of the car. The royal standard on the front of it and the royal license plate were a dead giveaway as to who rode inside.

  Her security detail today was not just Clara, but two other bodyguards who attempted to control the tightening crowd. Always gracious, Genevieve shook hands, smiled, and chatted with as many as she could while still trying to inch across the sidewalk to the store.

  Theo timed it. From her getting out of the car to entering the establishment took eight minutes.

  Holy fuck.

  If he’d gotten out of the car himself, he could’ve been inside in thirty seconds. He had a first-hand look at how jam-packed her schedule was. Nobody had known the princess was coming. But word would spread now. By the time she wanted to leave the store, there’d probably be twice as many people gathered. It might take twice as long for her to get to the car.

  He’d been wrong.

  Epically wrong.

  The princess had told him that it made things easier for stylists to come to the palace. He’d looked at what they charged her for the visits and high-handedly decided that “easy” wasn’t reason enough not to leave the palace.

  Except this was clearly one of those times when the cost was worth it. Both for her time and her safety. Would they have to call for extra protection before she left?

  Theo was tempted to call off the whole visit.

  But they were here already. Perhaps something could be salvaged.

  So after she lost another five minutes greeting the owner, the salespeople, and the shocked and excited shoppers, Theo was finally able to lead the princess to the back of the store.

  “Here’s where we’ll start, Your Highness.”

  She looked at the nearest display. “Socks? You’re going to turn around the royal budget by me driving into town to buy cheaper socks?”

  “No.” Theo reached for her shoulders to turn her around. At the last minute, he remembered that they were in public and he should in no way be touching the princess. Especially not with two women unsuccessfully trying to hide that they were videoing Genevieve.

  Really? Because he’d dragged her out, now there’d be footage on YouTube of them shopping?

  God, what a clusterfuck this had become.

  Genevieve pointed at the next shelf over. “Bras? I know you’ve seen mine, but it feels a bit presumptuous that you help me shop for lingerie.”

  “Christ on a cracker, no.”

  Laughter burst out of her. Not polite, I know I’m being filmed laughter. Genevieve’s whole face crinkled in hilarity.

  And it was adorable.

  “What is that? A cracker? Is that a thing Americans say? It’s so silly!”

  Oh, so she was laughing at him. Great. Stupendous. Theo deliberately turned his back on the lookie-loo women. He also angled to protect the princess from their taping.

  Roughly, Theo ground out, “No. Nobody says it.”

  Laughter still flowing, Genevieve shook her head. It sent her carefully styled and sprayed hair into a golden fan around her. “Then why did you?”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. He’d tried to do one nice thing. One proper thing. All it got him was mocked. Theo threw his hands in the air. “Because I’m trying not to swear as much in front of you. Because you’re…you know.”

  First, Genny covered her mouth with both hands. She looked left and right with about as much subtlety as a circus clown. Then she slowly dropped her hands just far enough to whisper loudly, “A princess?”

  “Yes.” And she could stop chapping his ass any damn time now.

  “I’m also a twenty-seven-year-old woman.” All traces of humor washed from her face. Genevieve took his hand and tapped it on her sternum. “A woman, Theo. I thought you of all people would be able to look past the title and see the real person.”

  He, of all people, could not ignore her title.

  Because it had shaped his entire life.

  Theo pulled back his hand, shoved it in his pants pocket. “Do you mean because of all the privilege and pomp and perks related to it that I’m trying to streamline from the budget?”

  “No. I mean because you’ve had your tongue down my throat and know which of my breasts has a mole just to the side of the nipple.”

  Shocked at her words, Theo glanced back over his shoulder. Clara, standing with widespread legs and a don’t even think about it flatness to her expression, was keeping the other shoppers at bay. But they had ears. And their eyes were close to bursting from trying to see around him to the princess.

  “Your Highness, we are not alone,” he reminded her.

  The corners of her lips quirked up into a smirk. “I’m well aware. That is my life, Lord Theo. To always be the focus of eavesdropping and watching. Most of the time, I fulfill my duty, as expected. Every once in a blue moon, however, I’m just me. A woman having a conversation with a man who intrigues and confuses her.”

  If she’d pulled a handful of squid out of her purse and tossed them in the air, Genny wouldn
’t have surprised him more.

  Leaning in, he said in a low voice, “Let’s get this field trip—and the confusing part—out of the way so we can get back in the car and concentrate on what intrigues you.”

  “Very well.” Genny smoothed her blouse. “What change in my personal shopping habits can you show me here that will be integral to removing the stain of shame from my budget?”

  Now she was sassing him. The woman was in rare form.

  Theo bit back a grin. With a curt nod, he edged past her to peruse a standing rack of pantyhose. The thing was worse than a sixty-four-color box of crayons. What was the difference between nude, suntan, beige, and taupe? He couldn’t tell. He yanked a package out of the top slot and waved it in the air.

  “These, Your Highness. You need to buy these.”

  Genevieve leaned forward, squinted at the rack, and then crossed her arms. “Both Kelsey and I could fit in the pair you’re holding. So did you mean the size, the color, or the brand?”

  Difficult as always.

  Well, it wouldn’t be any fun if she capitulated after the first thrust. They’d parry for a while. Call it foreplay.

  He waggled them back and forth. “Just prepping for the next three-legged race your sister drafts me into.”

  “Well done.”

  “The brand of pantyhose you currently buy costs five times what this package does.”

  Her gaze cut to the packages on the rack, gave it the same dismissive once-over that he himself gave rail drinks at a bar. “Quality matters. Pantyhose are part of the uniform of a female royal.”

  That argument wouldn’t fly. No uniform disintegrated in two wearings. “You went through seven pairs in the ten days of your tour through India.”

  “I sat in a lot of rattan furniture. As far as my pantyhose were concerned, I was sitting on barbed wire.”

  “It adds up, Princess. It adds up to a truly unbelievable amount. Do you think the average citizen of Moncriano can afford the brand you wear?”

  “No, I do not. Which is a shame.”

  From out of nowhere, something blunt connected with Theo’s shoulder and the back of his neck. Hard. More than once.